Any interesting school stories?

:D
I grew up in the Shirley Temple age. I went to a country school with no electricity or running water. (Just like at home.) I wanted to sing like her so bad. During recess, when we went to the outhouse, with black widow spiders just under the seat, I would show the other girls how I could sing like her and they said I sounded just like her.

In 7th and 8th grade we had a teacher that was a holy roller. She wore her hair in a long braid wrapper around her head and had a huge mole on the end of her nose. She was so ugly. She made us sing hymns and pray when school started, before and after lunch, and when school let out. Only one family liked her and to get back at her we gave her makeup for Christmas.

One time, I sassed her which was really unusual for timid me. She went to slap me, I ducked and she hit the big metal trash can. She came with her arm bandaged the next day.

When I started to school, I was so bashful I wouldn't go up to the recitation bench for class and she didn't say or do anything. She was so pretty and I just loved her. I even remember her name was Alleen Nelson. After a few weeks, I have been told, when she called for first grade class I went and sat on her lap. At that time there were four in our class and later there were five. Back then, teachers in country school didn't have to have a college education. They just had to take "normal training" in high school. No, I didn't have a covered wagon. Walked most of the time. It was only about a half mile.

Nothing as colourful (Canadian spelling) as yours! I was terribly shy and quiet in school (still am) - at work - so my school life was pretty dull. I avoided most social functions. I got teased a lot, because of being so shy. Actually, school was a painful experience for me!

I can sympathize with you there. I was also painfully shy. It made it very hard for me to complete my schoolwork when there was a presentation involved. Usually if I had to get up before the class or do something that would require some creativity, I just wouldn't do it because I was afraid of people laughing. Needless to say, my grades weren't all they could have been.

Now I can look back and laugh at some of the predicaments I got myself into but it sure wasn't funny back then.

my whole 8th grade year was interesting! Mr. Summer made learning fun and school was rarely boring.

but my favorite story spans two grades 7th and 8th

In the school library they had this awesome stuffed animal. A "cartoon" type vulture. I named him "Mr. Turkeybuzzard" one day during lunch we went to the library to bug the librarian which was normal for my group of friends... and he offered us popcorn. I don't know what it is about the popcorn, but it makes me hyper. Everytime. Never fails.

Well on this particular day I decided Mr. Turkeybuzzard needed a lesson in flying. So up he went (it was probably my most immature moment of my life, I'll admit it) and down he came. I did this several times, each time throwing him up higher... until... his head got stuck on the sprinkler. :o and then it ripped and came down... spilling the beans everywhere. Needless to say I didn't have to go to my last two periods as I was cleaning the mess up(it was never reported as anything though... Mr. Hatch rules!)

What was even more embarassing was the next year in Mr. Summer's english class we wrote an essay every week with a different "prompt" and one of the prompts was the "most embarassing moment in Jr. High" so I chose to write about the turkeybuzzard incident. This was late into the year and so Mr. Summer and I already had an understanding... he took my essay and made copies... they still have the essay(along with my 8th grade picture) framed and hanging in hte library. And Mr. Summer has another copy. Yeah I was loved.

8th grade also saw Mr. Summer setting his hair on fire with a musket shooting demo... an ice fishing day disaster as Mr. Summer put a rubber chicken on the end of his line and left it there and it scared the fish away... he also took a "power bar" that was the color of tongue and he pretended it was his tongue and stuck it on all things that were metal. *sigh* good times...

I will start by saying the only thing that I am afraid of are snakes. Alive, dead, big, small it doesn't matter. I am trying to overcome this phobia and can now watch them on TV. In 10th grade biology class the classroom was set up with rows of tables two students to a table. Biology was my first period class so I managed to usually sleep through the first few minutes while the teacher took attendance. One Monday morning I sleepwalked to class and put my head down on my table for my usual nap. Suddenly I raised my head and thought something is different here. I turned around and on the table behind me, that was usually empty, was a big aquarium with a boa constrictor in it I thought I was going to die. Our guest was scheduled to spend the entire week in the classroom. Piel went home sick and was too sick to attend school for the rest of the week.

When I graduated from college besides the usual graduation ceremonies nursing students have a special pinning ceremony. At this ceremony we recieve our nursing pins, get to wear regular uniforms for the first time, and recieved our stripes for our nursing caps. The director of nursing at my school was a very strange woman and always had a five o'clock shadow . At the pinning ceremony as our names were called each student walked up the steps onto the stage, was pinned, given a dozen roses, and finally had to face the director who was giving everyone a kiss on the cheek. It came my turn and Ms.director asked what I thought was "DID I give you a kiss?'. I replied "No". She then said "Ok, how about just a handshake?' I realized what she had said was "MAY I give a kiss". I was so embarrassed! While I as in collge Ms. Director was ill quite a bit with a blood clot in her lung. Before graduation each nursing student was required to take one of the elective nursing courses she taught. These classes were very boring. My roomates and I decided that since she was so sick she would probably not live until our graduaation so we avoided signing up for any of her classes thinking she will die and we wouldn't have to take her class. If her replacment had the same rule we figured it at least would be more interesting . Occasionally she would come to lectures by our other professors and would speak to us. As she spoke she would walk up and down the steps in the classroom so that she could make eye contact with everyone. She would have to stop often to catch her breathe and would hold on to the back of a seat to steady herself. Each time she did this we would hold our breathe thinking this could be the day she goes. Well, she survived. So, the last semester we had to take her class. To thank us she scheduled it..........from 8 to 10pm on Friday nights .

Our high school has a tunnel underneath it for storing junk and to shelter students during tornado drills. There was always a rumor that a closet in a teacher's classroom led to the tunnel.

Our high school was supposed to have an indoor pool but the layout plans were screwy and no pool was built.

One time in the 70s a circus came to town and began setting up on the grounds instead of at the car racetrack. Teachers had to shut the blinds because kids kept staring at the elephants.

We also had an old teacher nicknamed "Sarge" who were the same style sack dress everyday. She taught American history and was a hard-nosed teacher. Since she had a habit of leaning on a table podium, some students snuck into her room and unscrewed it. When she started to lean on it, it collapsed. She also cut her fingernails during class with scissors.

Another teacher had weak abdominal muscles that made her chronically look 6-months pregnant. People would ask when the baby was due.

Once in typing (it was the 80s) my typewriter caught on fire. I was typing and said to the girl next to me, "I smell smoke." She said, "look" and I looked down. Where it was plugged into the floor was a steady stream of smoke.

"We're supposed to be learning English in this class, not all this reading and writing stuff!"

No joke. This is one of my favorite student quotes ever.

Lucy, I teach 9th grade English. After they read silently for a half hour or so, they have to fill out a sheet telling me what they read. One kid said, "Don't you trust us to read?" Um, judging by the last test scores? No.

My other favorite was on the end of the year question I asked about their least favorite unit. "I hated the Odyssey. I don't like mid-evil literature."
But those later evil years, those rocked! (not to mention she was off by a couple thousand years, lol)

Oh, and ONE MORE, then I'm done. I asked, on a test over To Kill a Mockingbird, why did Jem and Scout's aunt move in with them? And the answer, "To help Jem become a lady." Damn, I bet Jem was surprised! (I told them over and over and over....JEM IS A BOY. SCOUT IS A GIRL.)

The funniest incidents that I can remember happen during class. I teach second graders and during a lesson about Christopher Columbus, one of my students asked me how old I was when Columbus discovered America. Seven and eight year olds have little concept of age....... 42

In our school district, teachers are required to go take two or three college classes every four years, which can be expensive.

Do they do that in your school system?

It depends. :D If you don't take at least 3 classes in five years, you stop moving up the pay scale. The classes also have to count towards a master's degree, they can't just be 9 random hours. I think this has affected about three teachers at my school, who whine about it. BUT our school district reimburses you 100% of your tuition, so really, they are idiots for not taking the school up on it.

In my school district, if you received your teaching credential by 1975, you have a life credential. If you got your credential after that year, you must take professional growth units every year to qualify for renewal. Anyone can take college units to move up the pay scale......42

Hmmmm....mine isn't that interesting, but I'll tell it anyway. I grew up in a strange place. I live on a mountain that basicly has two divisions: 1)The wealthy side, and 2)The not so wealthy side. I was born and raised on the not so wealthy side. So, anyway, the schools happend to be located in the wealthiest area and only offered a K-8 education. These were truly hellacious years! I was the weird kid with hand-me-downs and a working mother. Imagine it! The majority of the children were ultra-wealthy and were being groomed for the finest prep schools money could pay for. I did receive a wonderful education in these schools, but they were mostly miserable years. High school was such a wonderful shock. I finally was able to get off that damn mountain and discover an entirely different world. I still live on the mountain and I have recently been an avid opponet of a proposed high school project for the area. Naturally, all of the wealthy parents are just super thrilled about the whole idea....but I think it is wrong. In so many ways I wasn't prepared for high school or the real world and I think that my early, sheltered educational experience had much to do with it.
But, I do have one funny/not so funny memory from 6th grade health class. We had this anxiety ridden, anorexic-looking man for a sub one day. He was unable to discipline us effectively at all and total chaos ensued. A group of boys (from my end of the mountain no less!) ended up turning the lights off and stuffing the poor man in one of those rubbermaid garbage cans!